Conventionally, image data transmitting apparatuses have been in circulation in the market such as a facsimile device and a multi-function peripheral having a facsimile function and an internet facsimile function. Such image data transmitting apparatuses have a function of transmitting image data to an address of a pre-registered receiving party or an address of a receiving party input at the time of transmission.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 7-58898 discloses a client-server facsimile system that, to reduce the trouble of registering data of a receiving party in a telephone directory, at the time of finishing a transmission to a non-registered destination, registers setting used for such transmission in relation to the destination in the telephone directory.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 11-215339 discloses a document transmitting device that has the operability at the time of document transmission enhanced by, for example, enabling setting of a transmission method and an address by specifying a destination's name, enabling resetting of an appropriate address in accordance with a change of the transmission method, automatically selecting the transmission method and the address based on conditions such as degree of secrecy, degree of urgency, and attribute of the document, place of installation of the device, and line condition, and automatically generating and transmitting a transmittal cover letter notifying the transmission of document data. This document transmitting device automatically selects a detailed destination from an address book in accordance with predetermined conditions, automatically generates the transmittal cover letter from predetermined conditions, and transmits the cover letter. Here, the transmittal cover letter is automatically generated by inserting an abstract destination (destination's name), date and time, number of pages of the document, the transmission method (FAX/e-mail/file transfer protocol, etc.), the detailed destination (address of destination), and a fixed-form sentence into a blank document.
Furthermore, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2006-87028 discloses an image forming device aimed at enhanced efficiency of address book managing processing. An address book management portion of this image forming device builds an address book management mechanism by separating a destination management of managing destination data used for transmission processing and a selection management of managing selection of the destination data by users, and furthermore, uses an address book class in charge of the destination management, a selection sheet class in charge of the selection management, a bookshelf class bundling the address book classes, destination classes corresponding to individual destinations, a transmittal cover letter class for managing the transmission to the selected destination, an existing destination selection sheet class that is a subclass of the selection sheet class and is specialized in selection of an existing destination, and an additional destination selection sheet class that is a subclass of the selection sheet class and is specialized in the selection of newly input destinations.
However, in the system described in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 7-58898, while it is possible to extract items necessary for registration in the telephone directory and automatically register these items, the system is configured so that the user is requested by the system to register lacking data and the user is free to change the items for the registration in the telephone directory. Furthermore, in the systems described in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 11-215339 and Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2006-87028 as well, the address may be registered in the document transmitting device or image forming device that performs data transmission and the transmittal cover letter at the time of transmission may also be changed in such device.
Therefore, conventional technologies such as the technology described in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 7-58898 had a problem that even if a administrator sets appropriate transmission setting information for the transmittal cover letter, etc., in the address book, individual users may change such transmission setting information or the individual users may transmit inappropriate transmittal cover letter when they make transmission to important contractors.
In the device described in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 11-215339, the transmittal cover letter comprising the fixed form sentence, etc., is not particularly determined in accordance with a destination and in the devices described in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 11-215339 and Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2006-87028, the transmittal cover letter is not determined in accordance with the relationship between the user (sender) and the destination.